Brothers, love is a teacher, but a hard one to obtain: learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.
(Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

Friday, March 18, 2011

Poetry Friday: It Is March

It is March and black dust falls out of the booksSoon I will be goneThe tall spirit who lodged here hasLeft alreadyOn the avenues the colorless thread lies underOld prices

When you look back there is always the pastEven when it has vanishedBut when you look forwardWith your dirty knuckles and the winglessBird on your shoulderWhat can you write

The bitterness is still rising in the old minesThe fist is coming out of the eggThe thermometers out of the mouths of the corpses

At a certain heightThe tails of the kites for a moment areCovered with footsteps

Whatever I have to do has not yet begun

-- W.S. Merwin

Above: Landscape with Bare Trees and Coastline, 1862, by John LaFarge.